Tag Archives: WordPress

How long will it take customers to forget about you? You don’t want to find out the answer to this question the hard way. Establishing social media accounts is a first step, but you shouldn’t stop there. When it comes to Facebook and other social media, you need to regularly post or your readers will quickly lose interest in your page. If you don’t post often enough, your posts won’t show up in your readers’ newsfeeds. It doesn’t matter how many friends or fans you have if no one is seeing activity from your page.

Create a blog

Many companies have added blogs to their websites. Why? Blogs are a valuable tool for reaching out to customers. You can create a blog simply and quickly using WordPress. If you want support using the tool, you can work with a website developer who is experienced with WordPress. They can quickly install the tool and help you update it over time. Once installed, the tool is as simple to use as most word processing software. You can easily write articles, use spell check and add graphics and links.

Your blog can contain a wide variety of articles. Focus on content that is useful for consumers. The blog shouldn’t be an obvious marketing tool. Instead, it should contain information like:

How to solve common problems customers have with your products.

Ways to resolve issues that don’t involve your products but are related to your industry.

Answers to common questions customers have about projects that are related to your products and services.

Articles about trends in your industry.

Assistance in researching common concerns.

Advice from experts in your industry.

Spice up your Facebook page through WordPress Plug-ins

You can easily create a blog on WordPress and link relevant articles through your Facebook page. WordPress has a plug-in that can help you make the most of your blog and Facebook relationship. You can schedule articles to automatically post to your social media pages. What is social integration? It also known as social publishing. It means you can cross-post your content between your WordPress account and your Facebook timeline. This helps you save time and send your posts to Facebook immediately. You can also tag friends and other pages which will help you distribute your content to a wider audience.

The WordPress plug-ins are simple and don’t require complex coding on your end. If you don’t have the time or staff resources to deal with WordPress plug-ins, you can find a contract website developer who can install these plug-ins quickly and inexpensively. Ask the installer to explain how the new plug-ins work and how you can use them effectively.

You can publish new content to Facebook in more than one way. First, you should have a company page set up. You can regularly post content and it will appear on your fans’ newsfeed. Next, your authors can create their own Facebook pages so they can share their articles with their followers. Encourage employees to repost links on articles that interest them.

You can use WordPress widgets to point users towards useful content. You can add a recommendations box to refer users to site content based on likes and comments from other users. You can also do this through an activity feed. You can also embed the public post content on Facebook in your WordPress posts easily by entering a shortcode or embedding a link.

Update WordPress Features

WordPress adds new features all the time. New WordPress widgets can help you boost your interactions with customers all the time. You can use social plug-ins that let you learn more about your friends and followers. The activity feed will show your friends’ and fans’ activity on Facebook. This might include their comments on other pages and likes. You can use this information to create posts and articles that relate to the interests your customers have.

WordPress plug-ins allow you to create richer comments sections on your blog. The plug-ins make it possible for readers to comment on your site and post these comments back to Facebook. You have the option to use moderation tools. Why are these tools important? Many spammers use comments sections to plug their websites or post irrelevant links. Other times, readers get into arguments on unrelated issues in the comments section. You don’t want this type of content to post to your Facebook page. It wastes your reader’s time and they’ll get in the habit of ignoring your posts. They may even hide your newsfeed so that they can’t see the information.

Make Use of “Like” and “Send” buttons

You can use WordPress widgets to embed “Like” and “Send” buttons into your posts. Customers can then easily share your content to Facebook using the buttons. They don’t have to take the extra step of copying and pasting the link to their pages. This makes them much more likely to share your content on social media.

General tips for social media

Here are some general tips that will help you keep your social media presence relevant and engaging:

Post regularly. Don’t neglect your blog or social media accounts. If you don’t have time to create posts and links, work with a social media expert. There are a variety of writers and marketing consultants that can do this work on an as-needed basis.

Avoid engaging in controversial issues on your company’s social media. Don’t send, like or repost content on politics and social issues no matter how strongly you might feel about them. Your customer base is diverse and if people are offended by posts, they’ll probably delete you from their Facebook and other social media accounts.

Use Twitter to send your information to users. This can help remind them to visit your page on a regular basis.

Run contests and regular promotions. Send the information through social media and encourage users to share with their friends. Many companies successfully use coupons and regular specials to engage readers.

Keeping social media up to date is a critical part of the modern marketing process. Remember, if you don’t have the time or staff to dedicate to these efforts, you can always hire consultants to support you. If you neglect social media, you will miss out on opportunities to engage potential customers. This can have a direct impact on you company’s bottom line.

Online marketing is an important tool for modern businesses. The challenge with online marketing is that the playing field is constantly changing. Your company needs a flexible strategy that can adapt to changes quickly. You and your colleagues should plan to meet regularly to discuss your marketing efforts and how they are working. Even if only one person in the company deals with social media, you should plan as a team.

Changes in social media

Think about how much social media has changed since the introduction of sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and lead-generating services (ones for payday loan leads, etc). Five years ago, some marketing managers didn’t think about these tools at all. Now, they’re a critical part of any company’s strategy. Print, television and other types of advertising are still important as well. A good strategy integrates all of these pieces to make a social media campaign that has the best chance of reaching potential customers.

Up-to-date campaigns

Many businesses choose to work with a consultant to help them keep social media campaigns up-to-date. They may also hire graphic designers and website developers to make the work of social media less cumbersome. Specialists may be able to do this work quickly and at a lower cost than you expect. Often, it’s cheaper to hire an expert than to try to do the work in-house. It’s important to pick a strategy that works for your business over time. You may be able to do some social media campaigns on your own and hire assistance for others.

Flexible strategies mean that your company can adapt to new changes. It’s important that you analyze your marketing plans on a frequent basis. Evaluate all the new trends in social media and determine whether you are effectively addressing that trend. You’ll need a knowledgeable staff member who understands trends in social media. A marketing consultant can also help in this area. You can work with a consultant on a monthly, quarterly or other basis to evaluate your social media campaigns and their effectiveness.

Keep in mind that you cannot develop a static marketing strategy and expect it to work over the long term. The days of planning all of your marketing and advertising for the next five years are over. The world changes too quickly. Customers rapidly change their behavior. Today, many consumers search for information on businesses before they make commitments. They search for business ratings on sites like Yelp! before they determine who they want to work with. They may ask for referrals through social media like Twitter or Facebook. Customers sometimes decide what they want or need by looking at sites like Pinterest or Instagram.

Some companies have found ways to market themselves with tools that customers already use. Restaurants and bars encourage customers to post pictures on Instagram. Retail businesses often advertise specials through Facebook and Twitter. Other businesses reward customers by encouraging them to share information on social media. For example, some companies run contests that customers enter by retweeting or reposting information on Facebook. Some businesses allow users to pin products to Pinterest. Companies have to develop these strategies quickly to keep up with new customer behavior on the internet.

A constant presence

Social media marketing has to be constant in order to be effective. You cannot post occasionally to Facebook and expect to have an impact. Your Facebook page needs to be interactive in order to attract visitors. You can use a Facebook site to invite customers to events. You can also share coupons with them or invite them to discussions. Whatever you do, it has to fit in with the way customers are currently using Facebook. Customers change their behavior on Facebook constantly due to changes in the tool itself. Your Twitter account also needs to be active on a regular basis to keep users interested.

Users often stop following Twitter accounts that don’t offer new or useful information. Many users find information from hashtags or sponsored tweets. The person in charge of social media at your company must stay aware of the latest trends. He or she should constantly check for new social media trends platforms. He or she should then evaluate how best to integrate new social media trends into your company’s efforts immediately.

Search engine optimization

There are a number of marketing sites on the internet that can help you understand new trends in marketing. You can learn how to naturally place keywords for search engine optimization (SEO). It’s important to keep abreast of new SEO tools because search engines are constantly evolving. You may have an SEO strategy that works for now, but becomes stagnant due to changes in Google or in customer behavior. It used to be acceptable to place lots of keywords in articles to improve your search engine ranking. Today, that kind of keyword approach is ineffective and can even harm your search engine rankings.

WordPress

If you are blogging, you may already be using the WordPress tool. WordPress is constantly changing. New plug-ins and tools are constantly being developed. You should ensure that you are using the latest version of WordPress and that you are taking advantage of all of its features. You may need to hire a web development professional on a temporary basis to help you optimize WordPress. An experienced developer can quickly set up the plug-ins that you need most. It’s often cheaper easier to hire someone than try to learn all the ins and outs of WordPress yourself.

Evaluating efforts

There are a variety of tools that can help you evaluate your marketing efforts. You can check page views, incoming traffic on your website, retweets and other social media statistics. If your company offers discounts or coupons through social media, you can determine which ones are being used most. This will give you reliable information about which marketing efforts are working and which ones aren’t.

Adaptability

The most important part of your marketing strategy is your ability to stay current and adapt to new trends. You may find it helpful to work with a consultant who is constantly focused on these trends. If you handle marketing on your own, remember that you need to evaluate information frequently and thoroughly. What tools are bringing in new customers? How can you integrate new trends into your company’s marketing strategy? Are you doing things that aren’t working? If so, how can you adjust to make your efforts as effective as possible?

If you’re reaching out to clients through social media, you need to be conscious of the message you are sending at all times. These means caring about the complete images your customers receive. Your social media strategy should align with your business goals. The content of your communications, blogs, postings and Tweets is important. You want to send rich, interesting information. However, it’s also important that you pay attention to the details. Don’t be so focused on speed that you neglect the quality of the writing in your communications.

Why does quality matter?

Why does the quality of writing matter so much? Isn’t the information the most important thing? It’s easy to think of social media as a place where normal writing and grammar rules don’t apply. Some writers use abbreviations and don’t capitalize letters or check their spelling. Just because it is common doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. Customers notice the quality of your writing and make judgments based on what they read. They will see carelessness as an indication of a bad attitude and low commitment to quality. If you don’t care enough about the quality of a simple message, will you really care about your customers’ needs? Will you take the time to do your work properly if you can’t even communicate clearly?

Clean copy

The copy in your messages needs to be easy to read and free of errors .Typographical errors are signs of carelessness. Your messages send a lot of information about your business. Potential customers may be exposed to your company for the first time through social media. The first message they read can make or break their impression of you and your services. You may never have a chance to undo a bad impression you’ve made through social media. That’s why it’s so important to get it right the first time. .

Style

You should use an informal, but professional style when writing online. You don’t want the sentence structure to be extremely formal because it will alienate readers. It’s fine to use first and second person terms like “you” and “I”. You can do this and still maintain a professional tone. You want to avoid social media traps that make you sound unprofessional.

The first is using common but inaccurate word spelling. Don’t make words plural using a “z” instead of an “s”. You’ve probably seen text like “good eatz” or “winterz new style!” These spellings might be common on social media but they’re not business-like and you should avoid them.

Another common trap is “capslacking”. This means that the writer doesn’t properly capitalize words in a sentence. It’s a sloppy habit that reflects poorly on the writer.

Confusing terms

Be careful to avoid abbreviations and insider terms. If you use an abbreviation, make sure it is a commonly understood one that the average reader will understand. Don’t use terms that are exclusive to your industry. They may confuse new readers. If you must use an industry term, take the time to explain it. This will minimize frustration for the reader. Some writers include glossaries when they need to use a lot of industry terms. It’s easy to create hyperlinks to definitions in blogging engines like WordPress. This simplifies things for the reader. Don’t talk over the reader’s head. It won’t impress anyone and it will turn readers off. Social media is a way to connect with your readers through easy to understand material.

Grammar guidance

There are a wide variety of grammar sites that can give you guidance on good grammar. It’s a good idea to ask a colleague to read through anything you’ve written. Often, when you’ve worked hard writing something, you don’t notice errors because you’ve read the text so many times. A second pair of eyes will help you spot errors. You can also hire editors on a per-project basis at a low cost. Even professional writers need editing support on a regular basis.

Breaking up text

You can make text easier to read by breaking it up with subheadings or bullet points, like what we’re doing in this article. You can often prepare a post ahead of time by outlining some bullet points and then filling in text on each point. It will be easy to pick out subheadings and keep yourself organized if you outline a post ahead of time. Bullet points are popular on social media because they are easy and quick to read. Subheadings are also popular because readers can scan the heading and decide what parts of the text they want to read.

Simplicity is key

Keep in mind that well-written text is important because it is easy to read. Good writing simplifies material and helps readers gather information quickly. People often turn to social media to help them understand complex topics. Try dividing information into easy to read capsules, such as simple steps and easy categories. You can also do question and answer formats in your blog post. These work well if customers have common questions about your business or related issues. Think about common questions and concerns that your customers have and address them in your blog. If you can simplify issues and information for people through social media, they will come to rely on you in the future.

How can you tell if your text is easy to read? Try reading it out loud to yourself. If it’s difficult or awkward out loud, readers will have problems with it as well. Have someone outside your company read it quickly and ask them a few questions to make all the information is clear to the reader. Always ask someone who is willing to give an honest opinion. Remember, you can’t undo a first impression so you should edit your work carefully.

If you write interesting posts that are relevant to readers, your blog will boost the traffic to your website. Try to provide them with information they can’t find anywhere else. Explain complex information to them in simple terms. Consolidate a difficult process into simple-to-follow steps. Help them find additional information. Following these simple steps will help you get results with your social media efforts.

Blogging is a great tool for website development and marketing. A lot of people blog, but not all blogs are created equal. Some merely regurgitate information that can be found elsewhere on the Internet. Some blogs are too narrowly focused on the company’s interests without taking the customer’s needs and concerns into consideration. A blog is an important marketing tool and can help you increase your naturalized web placement if you do it properly.

Organic Search Engine Placement

You may feel intimidated when you hear terms like organic search engine placement (SEO) but it’s actually a very simple marketing concept. When you have an organic SEO strategy, you are ensuring that when customers search certain keywords related to your business, your website is at the top of the search return list. How do you do this? You do it by integrating these keywords into your content. For example, if you run a business that repairs and replaces vinyl siding, you want your company website to be at the top of the Google list when customers search for terms like “siding”, “insulated siding”, “vinyl siding” and ”improving your home’s exterior.”

Organic SEO means that instead of paying Google to rank your site highly, you improve your placement by working keywords into your website’s content. Blogging is a great way to integrate keywords into your website naturally. You can blog about issues related to your business and the keywords will fit into the text appropriately. A blog should feature new articles on a regular basis. Blog articles don’t need to be long and complex. A few paragraphs with useful information are enough to entice customers into reading your blog.

Identifying Keywords

It’s important to identify the right keywords before you start writing. You can do this by entering terms that are related to your business on Google. You will see a variety of related terms when you search. It can be difficult to identify the right keywords. Many people work with a marketing professional to help them identify their ideal keywords. Marketing consultants are skilled at finding the right keywords quickly. They can also help you understand how customers are searching for information related to your business. This insight can assist you in writing the appropriate content to draw users to your site.

Useful Content

Making your blog useful and pertinent to your customers is the key to getting them to read it. Customers aren’t looking for sales pitches when they read blogs. Instead, they want to read helpful information that is related your company’s industry. The keywords are important, but it’s equally important to integrate these keywords into useful information. If you are writing about vinyl siding, customers aren’t interested in reading about why your company’s vinyl siding installation is superior. They won’t be bother reading articles that are centered on why you are better than your competition.

Your blog should contain articles that focus on the customer’s root needs. Customers who are researching siding may want to read blogs about improving the value of their homes. They also might read articles about protecting their homes from storm damage or strategies for reducing heating and cooling costs. They may also view articles about ways to improve their home’s appearance or low-maintenance strategies for maintaining their home’s attractiveness. These are all issues that are related to siding but are not merely marketing articles. They contain helpful information for customers. When customers find your articles full of useful and reliable information, they are likely to return to your site again. They will see your blog as a resource.

Search Engine Rankings

Most search engines won’t notice your site until you’ve developed a strong, credible presence. This will happen when you provide pertinent information for your customers. When they find articles they like, they will share them on social media and forward the link to friends. They’ll come back to your site over time to read more articles and share them on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. This will help increase your site’s ranking.

Getting started on a blog is probably simpler than you think. Many people turn to WordPress as a blogging tool. WordPress is simple to use and has many features that can make your blog look sophisticated and pleasing without a lot of work on your end. You can choose from a wide variety of template themes with that have professional, polished looks; or you can hire a professional web designer to create a theme uniquely branded for your business. Another advantage of WordPress is that you do not need in-depth programming knowledge to create your blog if you’re using a free blogging platform, but if you are looking to have a custom WordPress theme created, then your web designer should be able to help you install WordPress on your hosting account and install the custom theme. After having your web designer publish the WordPress files, you will only need to learn a few steps to begin publishing blog posts immediately. If you are concerned about getting started, look to a web designer for guidance, they assist you with development.

Marketing Support

Many people work with a marketing consultant to help them develop a blog strategy. You don’t necessarily need to work with a consultant over a long period of time to get a marketing strategy in place. A few meetings may provide you with all the information you need. A marketing consultant can provide guidance on issues like understanding social media and organic search engine optimization; you can also hire them to design a marketing plan for your business. They can help you figure out what to blog about and help you set up a blogging tool quickly. One of the greatest challenges business owners face is the rapid changes in marketing on the internet. Trends come and go and users constantly change the way they use information. A regular checkup with a consultant can ensure that you are using your internet marketing tools effectively. You’ll learn about new trends and tools that you can integrate into your strategy.

A marketing consultant can help steer you away from common mistakes that new business bloggers make. Some bloggers try to pack their articles with relevant keywords to improve their organic SEO. This can actually decrease your ranking in search engines. Marketing consultants are skilled at helping you navigate the changing trends in blogging strategies and social media trends to improve your site’s performance over the long term.

The Content Management System or CMS that you choose should be intuitive to use. Once your marketing team has you up and running, you should feel comfortable taking over at least some of the tasks associated with managing your website. That’s where a good content management system can make the difference.

What is a Content Management System?

A content management system is a web application used in the creating, managing, storing and deploying of website content. A good content management system focuses on allowing the non-programmer to write, edit and post content and photos using a simple to navigate web interface, which is why WordPress is considered one of the best CMS tools available.

When WordPress was first released it was best known for its ease of use by bloggers, but over the years, the platform has morphed into much more. WordPress is completely customizable, allowing small and medium sized businesses the opportunity to work with their design and development teams to create a custom them specific to their brand that is also search engine friendly, while having the ability manage their content.

Installing

Make sure you choose a CMS that doesn’t just focus on those that are highly tech savvy. Website frameworks comes with endless bells and whistles that you can take advantage of, but you aren’t going to use these if you need an IT degree to be able to make them work. Instead choose a CMS that’s designed for your level of understanding, your marketing consultant can help you pick a winner. WordPress CMS frameworks offer you an easy way to take advantage of what a CMS has to offer.

Easy to Create and Edit

Make your business task simpler and hire a marketing team to design your custom website –branded just for you, help you select a reliable hosting provider with the proper CMS security in place, and get your initial website up and then, you can take it over the content and photo additions. Keeping your site’s content up-to-date is key to gaining placement on the web. Good and frequently added web copy drives traffic to your company’s website. If you want to easily update your content without having a webmaster on retainer, an HTML program or FTP software, then you need WordPress as your platform.

There are four popular Content Management Systems: Joomla, Drupal, Expression Engine and WordPress. However, WordPress is the most popular of all and the most recommended by marketing specialists. WordPress is an open source framework that has thousands of developers working on it – creating new plug-ins, identifying and fixing security risks, and improving both user and admin interface experiences. With WordPress you have a team of developers and teachers world-wide. Talk to your marketing team to find out why WordPress is the most recommended CMS.

WordPress has grown from a blog site to so much more. In fact, today it’s by far the most popular CMS (Content Management System) for building a website. Of course, you can still build a blog, but it’s important to realize you can do so much more!

The Difference Between Non CMS Websites and WordPress

When a developer builds a website with standard HTML, he/she creates a static template. Using this template each of the web pages is created and then it saves as its own file. Each page will contain both the template (presentation layer) and the content (content layer) for that page. This file is then uploaded to the site. If you want to make a change, big or small, to the content of the web page, you need to change the file and then upload it again. You always risk messing up your formatting during this process.

WordPress handles this differently, because all of the content is stored in a database. That means anytime you need to change content it’s very easy and you never have to be worried about messing up your template. The template or presentation layer and the content layer are always stored separately.

Great, so we’ve established why WordPress is better because it uses a content management system (CMS); now let’s look at for more reasons why this CMS based platform is a great choice.

4 Reasons Why You Should Use WordPress for Your Website

The Ease of Content – You will find it is easy to create, edit, and manage all of your content. Once your site has been designed by your marketing team, you will be able to easily manage your content, without worry of destroying your template.

Business Branding – This is an easy way to brand your website and business, making it an excellent choice for business. Your customers and potential customers need to recognize your business and your website is a powerful tool for achieving this.

Extensibility – WordPress is Open Source, which means it offers a continuously growing and expanding number of developers who are constantly creating new themes and new plugins, including social media plugins, extending the functionality.

Support – There is a very large support network for WordPress. You can find an experienced marketing and design company to create your website using WordPress.

WordPress with its content management system functionality offers you a superior alternative to non CMS functionality. Your marketing team will design your site to maximize your branding and exposure.

WordPress is one of the most user friendly platforms available today, even better, this CMS or content management system is free. Just stop by WordPress.com to get your copy, unless of course you are using one of the many hosting services with 1 step install.

Essentially, creating a basic website quickly and affordably has been made possible with this CMS. Those of you seeking advanced functionality, customization, or features may still need to enlist the help of a professional website designer to make your site just perfect. Whichever way you choose to go, WordPress is still a great choice and here are just a few of the reasons why.

Reason #1: WordPress is Simple and User Friendly

WordPress is easy to navigate and those of you with even basic skills should be able to navigate and update your site. Even though you can make a lot of improvements to the site yourself, getting everything setup may be better left to a professional, but once that is done, you can take the reins on your new site.

Reason #2: WordPress is Open Source

WordPress is open source, meaning they allow everyone to participate in its development. The advantage to this is that there are thousands of people working to improve WordPress, rather than just one single company.

Reason #3: WordPress is SEO Friendly

In addition to being user friendly, WordPress is very SEO friendly as well. There are several programs that will help you set up basic SEO without any expertise in the area. WordPress websites tend to do much better with naturalized web placement in search engines than other website development platforms; one of my favorite plugins is Yoast SEO. This is a great tool and with some studying or professional help, can make a big difference in the amount of traffic to your site.

Reason #4: WordPress Has Several Plugin

Plugins are basically add-ons that give your website advanced functionality. This could include adding a store to your site, increasing the ability for social sharing, or even allowing single sign in features. If you are not sure where to start, a professional website designer can get you headed in the right direction. Remember, time is valuable, don’t waste yours guessing while a pro could be fixing.

Reason #5: WordPress Makes it Easy to Update Content

You don’t have to know any complicated HTML formulas to update your website with WordPress. It comes with a simple rich text editor that anyone can use. This means that once your site has been designed, you should be able to login and update content and blogs on your site. If you do need some advanced HTML coding on your site, be sure to consult a professional to avoid costly damages.

Reason #6: WordPress Themes are Aesthetically Pleasing

Sometimes you need a website, but have a very limited budget. Selecting one of the free WordPress themes is a great way to get started. As your budget increases, you can then improve your current theme or even have a custom one made for your site.

Ultimately WordPress has forever changed the way in which many of us will build our website. Rather you try it yourself or enlist professional help, you would be wise to choose WordPress for your personal or business Website.